This
By DAVID COHEN

‘

Soviet Union's peace budget
puts cold water on the ‘cold war’

ECENT news from the Soviet

Union has sent a cold shiver
of terror and alarm down the cor-
idors of, Washington’s White
House. :

In a display of strength “calcu-
lated to paralyse the Western de-
fense effort,” the Soviet ,people
have decided to cut down their
expenditure on defense by 10 per
cent and provide increased sums
of money in their 1954 budget
for social and cultural services.

The decision is obviously the
newest of a long series of moves
“to undermine the morale of the

leaders of the free world.” -

Only a few weeks ago, the
editors of the New York Herald
Tribune panicked over the news
that the Soviet Union was pro-
ducing ever-increasing quantities,
not of armaments, ‘but of con-
sumer goods.

That worthy paper described
this in a feature article as “Rus-
sia’s Secret Weapon.”

And just a little earlier, at
precisely the time when the im-
perialists were shouting that they
would launch a “massive retalia-
tion” in the event of a “Soviet
attack,” M.“Khruschev went and

spoilt the whole atmosphere of
tension by announcing a vast plan
for the reclamation of waste land
and increasing agricultural: pro-
duction.

Then again, just when the Am-
erican press was getting nicely
into a campaign to prove that the
Soviet Union was building a huge
offensive army “behind the Jron
Curtain,’ the cursed NATO Re-
port was released from Paris
showing that the USSR “has the
same standing army of 175 divi-
sions. as two years ago” and ‘that
thebuild-up of her armed forces
is “not sudden or alarming.”

All this is very distressing and -
difficult for the United States .
warmongers. The Soviet people
appear to be determined not to
cooperate in increasing interna.
tional tension, and it is not at all
clear how a really good war can
_ be started if they persist in this
_ uncooperative attitude.

Just look at the Soviet people!
One would expect them to con-
-contrate seriously on producing
tanks and guns and H-bombs. And
instead, what do they do but con-
-centrate on producing eggs,
cheese and champagne!

One would expect them at least
to discuss seriously how to go in
for.a Third World War. And in-
. steadywhat do they do but discuss

4

crop. production and _ socialist
realism in music and literature.

They do not seem to realise
how abominably difficult they

are making it for the U.S. war-
mongers.

Here they are (the warmong-
ers) trying their best, day and
night, to prove that the Soviet
Union wants war, to increase in-
ternational tension, to find an ex-
cuse for crushing all opposition
at home, clutching unwilling na-
tions in their claws, grabbing
bases all round the world, and
eventually attacking the Soviet
Union, the People’s Democracies
of Eastern Europe and People’s

_ China.

And the Soviet Union, instead
ef being as helpful as possible, is
throwing cold water on the “cold
War.”

It is a very dangerous thing.
The warmongers have shouted
for so long that the Soviet Union
is preparing for war, that some
people have begun to think that
it is a much better way to pre-
pare for war than the American
way.

y

The new navigation lock of the
Kama hydro-engineering | struc-
ture in the Molotov region is now
in operation. Photo. shows the

tugboat Buran (in the foreground)

and the passenger boat Ivan
Papanin. Fgh

It has even been suggested that
the United States imperialists
could do the same thing.

Think of what would happen
in the United States! Defense
expenditure would be cut down

from 79 to 17.8 percent, con- »
~sumer goods would increase vast-

ly, more money would be spent

on education, housing, social and

cultural’ services. Wages of all

workers by hand and brain in the

United States would increase
- s

every year. Prices would fall

‘twice a year! - :

What an excellent way to -pre-
pare for war! “
But then the warmongers do
not themselves believe that the
Soviet Union is preparing’ for
war. They know the Soviet peo-

ple are building. for peace.

This confession was made in
an article in the London Eco-
nomist on December 12, 1953,
and again in a book review of
Soviet Economic Policy in Feb-
ruary. a

In the article dealing with the
increase in production of con-
sumer goods in the Soviet Union
and the People’s Democracies of
Eastern Europe, the Economist
said: .

“From the West's point of
view, the lesson to be drawn is

clear: it is that the Communist:
. bloc does not expect and-is not
_ Preparing for a major war in

the near future.”

And*had not’ Stalin himself

stated in his Economic Problems
of Socialism in the USSR, while
pointing out that the contradic-
tions between the capitalist coun-
tries are stronger than those be-
tween capitalism and socialism:

“Secondly, because the capita-
lists, although they clamor for
‘propaganda’ purposes, about the
aggressiveness of the Soviet
Union, do not themselves believe
that it is aggressive, because they
are aware of the Soviet Union’s

Peaceful policy and know that it.

will not itself
countries,”

This, however,
what makes the
afraid.

They are afraid that their
whole house-of-cards propaganda
campaign against the Soviet Un-
ion and the Soviet “war bloe”

attack capitalist

is precisely
warmongers so

‘will be blown into thin air.

If the Soviet Union is not pre-
paring for war; if she is building
for peace; if there is No such
thing as a “Russian war bloc”;

then why the American armies’
-and navies all over the world,

why the aggressive arms pacts,
why ‘the arming of, Syngman
Rhee, Chiang Kai-shek and Bao
Dai, why the anti-Communist
hysteria in the United States?
lt would all become clearer

than it has ever been before that’

there is only one war bloc, the
war bloc of Eisenhower and Dul-
les; the last fig-leaf will have
been torn from their maniac
dreams of world conquest.

That is why the budget news
from the Soviet Union sent a cold
shiver of terror and alarm through
Washington.

_ They sare afraid of news from
the Soviet Union. They are afraid
of peace. u

Soviet hydro-electric station is the world’s largest and stretches dozens of miles on both sides of the Volga near Kuibyshev.

By TED TINSLEY

Sweet Salvation —

HOSE who believe that. U:S.
President Eisenhower has not
learned anything since taking of-
fice must have been considerably
disarmed at his rather shv and
wistful statement that no nation
can be saved for the “free world”
unless it wanted to be saved.
I suggest that Eisenhower
and Dulles make use of the fol-
lowing application blank to be
_ filled in by those nations which
want to be saved:

SALVATION APPLICATION
Attention ‘Nations: Fill in an-

yswers to all the following ques-
» tions:

1. The name of our nation

2. We want to be
Britain
- Frané¢e
Others) ee
(Check the United States and
one or more others). ~ ,

saved by:

3.. We agree to refer to our

Mike Gold Reader
_ CRITIC, Vancouver. B.C.: A
collection of Mike Ggld’s writings
from his first contact with the
working class struggle 40 years
ago, to his present day penetrat-
ing analysis of “Hollow Men” and
“Renegades” is a welcome addi-
tion to anybody’s library. __
‘Published on his 60th birthday
and commemorating 40 years of
proletarian writing, the Mike Gold
Reader gives us Many of Gold’s
shorter editorial writing; in: addi-
tion to excerpts from some of his
major works,
_ Without Money.

Included also are devastating

critiques of Thornton Wilder and
Ernest Hemingway, those “prec-
lous” liberals who paid lip service
< to the “common man” while lack-
ing the love for humanity so nec-
_€ssary in distinguishing the true
_Tevolutionist from the dilletante.

Perhaps the chapter entitled -

“Renegades” (first published in
1941) is the gem of the collection;
4 superb dissection of those writ-
ers impelled by a false emotion-
alism in the Hungry Thirties who,
wishing to be in the tone of the
times wrote their pseudo-revolu-
tionary themes about the down-
trodden’ and poor, How soon
/ Were these chameleons to apolo-
gize for what they now call the
“emotional climate” of the Roose-
velt era, and how merciless was

Gold in pointing out the false

ring of these erstwhile champions
of the depressed!

A product of the working class.

himself, Gold was reared on the
New York Lower East Side, and

bd

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 2, 1954 —

including Jews ©

George into Alaska, Such #

. > , a ae

saviours as “The United_ a

tions.” ‘
EES Cage ets

: ee f-
4. To make our salvation vi
manent we agree to make @

able to the United States acl

No... same

year lease the following f
ties:
The Army
Air Fields ey
Power Plants ae
Telephone and Telegraph. ras |
Raw materials, ores, mIN@*
etc; ; : ‘
Shipping and air contracts
(Nations which are reallY ged

ous about being saved are ~~
to check ALL the above):

5. We agree that our nati :
borders the United States oni
sides and is therefore es8©
to its security. Hey

No .-

Fill this in and mail imm
ly to John Foster Dulles, | tiod
ington, D.C. Your ‘applica
will receive prompt attentio®

diate

was)

OPEN FORUM

it was here in 1930 that he 95
his famous Jews Without | tene
a story of the “people of the 4 be
ments,” and it was here nde
first tasted the class stl rit’
that were to shape his late?
ings.

[Flashbacks

40 years ago
(From the files of the on

Federationist, July 3, Vy rt

A report from Prince “iy js
stated: “Everyone in the 7° met
jubilant at the announe' iit
that there is a strong P?

of a railway north from

nd
way will bring to Fort George
Vancouver by way of the %

and Great Eastern the a

wealth of the Ominica ©” ¢pe
the Stuart Lake districh. (ye
Groundhog coal district fe |
rich mineral areas of MP 9 |
north of the province. « - ‘

15 years ago

_ (From the files of the F°

Advocate, June 30, ? de

British Columbia sent hi :
gation of 30 to the fourt® ‘nog
dian Youth Congress in Wit

10 years ago a

(From the files of The :
July 1, 1944) onalll

John Goss, interna ‘pea! :

known singer, was chose? © ayl*

the newly-formed Labor

Guild in Vancouver.

pace